Resiliency

A resilience-based approach is already being used in many youth development, school improvement, and health-risk behavior prevention programs. Some programs have risk-focused strategies, such as the health program that seeks to reduce the exposure to threat. Others focus on improving the number or quality of resources available. Yet others seek to mobilize basic human adaptation strategies such as supporting cultural traditions, fostering secure relationships, or teaching effective coping strategies. Programs exist that include all three types of strategies.

In the early twenty-first century, research was evolving from the identification of the traits of resilience to resilience as a dynamic developmental process. The latter research was seeking to understand the precise nature of the interaction of resilience and risk factors in order to improve health, social, and academic outcomes. In providing a framework for the programs mentioned, it is considered the responsibility of adults to provide the external protective factors or assets while fostering the internal resilience traits of young people. The basic external assets include caring relationships, high expectations, and meaningful participation in home, school, and community. The internal assets encompass social competence, autonomy and sense of self, and sense of meaning and purpose.

The study of resilience holds the key to helping strengthen children's chances of succeeding in spite of many obstacles. The good news is that the past is not a prison, survivors exist who escaped and beat the odds. Their strengths can be identified along with strategies and processes to enhance the developmental process. Resilience can be cultivated.